A Minnesota hockey dad was sentenced life in jail with the opportunity of parole after 30 years over the 1993 chilly case homicide of a intercourse employee that was solved in a rare method.
Jerry Westrom, 56, was discovered responsible by Hennepin County jurors late final month of premeditated homicide within the first diploma in addition to intentional homicide within the second diploma over the horrific. extended loss of life of 35-year-old Jeanne Ann “Jeanie” Childs.
On Friday morning, a decide assessed a sentence according to the penalty for first-degree homicide on the time Childs was brutally killed. After 30 years, Westrom can be eligible to petition for parole.
The defendant declined to talk throughout the proceedings.
However a few of those that knew and liked Childs did supply their ideas.
“I’ve waited so a few years to have this finish and it’s put my life by way of a lot hell and I simply actually really feel I’ll always remember and love her the way in which I at all times did,” Childs’ mom, Betty Eakman, stated throughout a sufferer impression assertion, in keeping with CBS Information.
“The impact one thing like this creates may be vicious,” stated Childs’ niece, Melissa Beaulieu. “They have an effect on you for a complete lifetime. To lose somebody you like is a profound expertise.”
Westrom’s lawyer informed the decide the police arrested the fallacious man.
The defendant was arrested in February 2019 after novel efforts by native investigators to attach him to the crime.
After a long time of sitting on the shelf, police re-tested the presumed killer’s DNA discovered on the blood-covered crime scene and ultimately got here up with two hits in 2018 by means of a web-based family tree web site.
Westrom, a married father of three recognized as a “hockey dad” by native media, was the eventual alternative of the 2 as a result of he lived within the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul from April 1991 the December 1993 – and since he had various run-ins with native regulation enforcement for prostitution-related offenses throughout that point.
The month earlier than his arrest, regulation enforcement firmed up their conclusion by tailing him to a neighborhood hockey recreation, watching him eat a hotdog and wipe his mouth with a serviette, retrieving the used serviette from the trash, after which testing the serviette to see if his DNA matched the DNA discovered inside Childs’ ruined residence.
The DNA profiles did match and extra samples had been obtained from the defendant after his arrest. Extra testing ensued.
Westrom was a match for a bloody towel, a washcloth, a T-shirt, and spots within the sink; his semen was discovered on a blood-soaked comforter.
Jurors heard all in regards to the DNA matches – in addition to a bloody footprint linked to the defendant – and convicted him inside hours.
Childs was stabbed at the very least 65 occasions as she fought for her life. She slowly died as her killer tailed her from room to room.
After Westrom was sentenced, Eakman gave a short convention which ended along with her talking to her long-gone daughter in apostrophe, in keeping with Saint Paul-based ABC affiliate KSTP.
“My coronary heart’s been damaged for 29 years,” the grieving mom stated outdoors of the courthouse, noting that realized of her daughter’s loss of life by seeing it on the information. “They had been carrying my daughter’s physique out and I didn’t even know till I known as the coroner’s workplace and discovered that it was her.”
On the time, the lady’s loss of life “acquired scant information protection,” in keeping with the Star Tribune, and the case went chilly.
“I miss her, she’s purported to be there for me after I get previous and he or she gained’t be,” Eakman continued and appeared to the sky: “So all I gotta say is, honey, justice has been served and I’m pleased about that.”
[image via screengrab/KMSP]
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